


Red Lotus Blooms

by DreamOfCentipedes



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2018-12-19 05:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11890896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamOfCentipedes/pseuds/DreamOfCentipedes
Summary: A monster is forged in flame. As light burns out, red leaves unfurl. The dread march of Aogiri’s Salamander begins with a game by a pond on the day everything changed.





	1. A Rite of Passage

_Splish._

A ripple broke out across the water as the tail struck the surface, far from its target. Frowning, the boy readied his kagune and tried again.

_Splish._

Again the fat catfish darted nimbly away from the spearhead of the serpent’s path. This was beginning to get annoying. With all the force a child could muster, he raised his bikaku and launched a ferocious attack on the pond, striking the water over and over and kicking up a torrent that gurgled over the pond walls.

_Splash splash splash splash splash splash splash._

As the catfish that were caught in the onslaught slowly rose to the surface of the water, a gleam of hope was shining in the boy’s red eyes as he scanned the water’s surface to find the old king of the pond floating amongst the red lotus flowers – only to find him swimming along merrily beyond his reach. His face grew red with fury, and with a stamp of his foot he sunk into a sulk on the ground, before he heard footsteps ringing out on the cobbles of the courtyard.

“Oh – Tatara, what are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Tatara turned to the sound of his brother’s voice. Yan, never one for smiling, was looking down at him beneath his short fringe of white hair with an especially serious look on his square, pale face. Tatara could not help but look up in curiosity. Instead of his usual business suit, he was in his long white cloak, the one with broad sleeves edged with red flames. In their Yangshuo country retreat he was free to wear whatever he wanted, but he rarely wore it outside of ceremony or official Chi She Lian business. Tatara felt a little underdressed in his green pyjamas. Still, his brother was ten years his elder and a grown-up, and he knew better than to hassle him with silly questions.

“I couldn’t get to sleep. I was bored, and I never get to use my kagune in the city.”

Yan slowly nodded his head. “And Fei? Where is she?”

“In bed.”

“She didn’t want to come with you?”

“She did, but I said she couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“She likes the catfish.”

Yan cast a dead eye over the floating corpses in the pond. “And you don’t, I take it?”

“I don’t hate them. I just like killing them.” Tatara wiped his messy white fringe out of his eyes as his face crumpled back into a grimace. “But I can’t get the fat one. I don’t get it. He’s fat and old, so why is he so fast?”

Yan stepped onto the grass and leaned over the pond. Shortly, he spotted the culprit. “Oh, yes, him. He’s been in this household longer than I have. I remember sitting exactly where you are now when I was your age, studying how the fish moved. He was not quite so obese back then, nor so ancient, but I remember thinking something similar before I had a – a minor revelation of sorts, I suppose. The oldest and fattest fish in the pond would have to be the fastest, in order to be the oldest and fattest. Do you understand?”

Tatara looked at Yan with the sense of confused wonderment he often felt around him. “No.” He admitted sheepishly. Yan’s eyes began to lazily follow the evasive fish through the water.

“You see, Tatara, the fat fish becomes fat by eating the most feed, correct? Then how does it get to the feed before the other fish? By outswimming them. Likewise, the old fish grows old by swimming away from danger. You are far from the first bored child to try hunting our little pets.”

Tatara’s pensive face took the form of a deep frown. “So I won’t be able to hit it?”

“Come now, I never said that. How have you been aiming at him? Wait, let me guess. You’ve been relying on brute force, haven’t you?”

Tatara’s mouth had shut as soon as he opened it. He did not like it when Yan read him like that. It made him feel stupid.

“A strong kagune is a valuable thing, and without it, we Ghouls have little chance of catching any prey more serious than your average commuter. You have a powerful kagune, Tatara, and you should take pride in that. However, it is not enough to take down the craftiest of foes. That requires another discipline altogether.” Yan tapped the side of his head as he said “Patience.”

“It’s no fun if I have to wait around.” Tatara complained.

“You may not always have the luxury of killing for sport alone. Sometimes we must kill to keep what is precious to us. You are a child now, but first and foremost, you are a part of Chi She Lian. Never forget that.”

Yan’s lazy glance at the fish hardened into a penetrating stare. Tatara felt uneasy watching Yan become so still, as if his brother had frozen in time, until all of a sudden he saw his brother’s eyes change hue and felt something rushed past him. Tatara doubled backwards, and heard a light _splish_.

The boy stared up at his brother. The red irises shining over his pitch black eyes were cool. Protruding from underneath his cloak a thick crimson tail was swaying slowly back and forth, its end sharpened to a point. Tatara wondered when he had released his kagune, but then realised the more important matter at hand. He shot up, clutched the stone wall of the pond with a tight grasp, trembled with anticipation, and stared at the water as something broke the surface. The fat fish was turned upside down and floated on the water’s edge, motionless.

“You-you got him!” Tatara’s eyes shone wide and unbelieving. “Brother, that’s amazing! Even though he was the fastest, you got him in one go.” He turned to his older brother, awestruck. “How did you do it?”

Yan’s face did not betray a smile. Yan’s face never betrayed anything, but if Tatara had to guess, he would have said that if anything, his brother looked somewhat sad. “Simply a matter of technique.” He shrugged. “Still, I could never have brought him down in his prime. He was a victim of his own success, I suppose. I may not be the oldest and fattest fish in _my_ pond, but a rebel is always an upstart before he is a king. That, and I think that I would be right in saying that Ghouls are substantially stronger than fish.” Yan brought his finger to his chin in a manner of mock pensiveness.

Laughter did not come easily to Tatara, but there was something about Yan’s dead serious face as he said this that made him let out a light chuckle. “Then I want to be a king someday too.” Tatara boldly declared, lips twisting upwards into a wicked smile. “And I won’t get hit. No matter who tries to get me, I’ll always dodge.”

“Ah, it seems I have created a young rival for myself then. It should keep my blade from becoming dull, at least.” He paused, and gave Tatara a long, searching look. “Do you mean what you say, Tatara? Do you really wish to rise to the top?”

“Yes!” He nodded aggressively. “I’ll be the strongest Ghoul in China!”

“And do you mean to do your duty by Chi She Lian? One day, the organisation will fall to me. That day may even be very soon. When that day comes, can I trust you to be my kagune?”

Tatara faltered. “Your kagune?”

“I must be the face of not only Chi She Lian, but also of the Huo family. As you put it, I will have many people trying to ‘get’ me. I need a subtle, fast and strong agent of my own flesh and blood to dispose of them before they can dispose of me. If I am to be the head of Chi She Lian, I want you to be its kagune. Will you accept this proposal?”

Yan had used a lot of big and complicated words, but the message was clear – Yan was placing his faith in him, and that was something he did not give out easily. “I would be honoured.” He readily affirmed, in the manner his parents had taught him.

Yan gave him a last long stare and finally breathed out a quiet sigh. “I was going to send you to bed, Tatara, but I think it might be better if you are here to see this. Father and mother are inside?” Yan tilted his head towards the manor house at the end of the courtyard.

Tatara nodded. “Did you want to talk to them, brother?” His face suddenly filled with dread. “Don’t tell them about the fish, please. They’ll beat me. Say it was a kitchen boy.”

Yan seemed vaguely surprised at that. “You’ve no need to worry on that count, Tatara, I swear it. Are they awake?”

Tatara shook his head. “I think they’re sleeping.”

 “Sleeping. Yes, they would be.” An edge of ice had crept into his voice, but it softened back to its usual hardness when he turned to Tatara again. “Wait for me here. If you feel as though you are in immediate danger, retreat to the outer courtyard, but otherwise do not move and do _not_ turn away. Do you understand?”

Tatara was beginning to feel a little nervous, but he did not want to let Yan see, so he said, perhaps a little too boldly, “Loud and clear.”

“Until then.” Yan’s hand passed over Tatara’s head as he talked to the armed guards and headed into the manor house. Tatara watched as he disappeared behind the door, crumpled his white cloak together in his hands and stood silently, waiting.

For the longest time, there was no change in the manor house. Tatara was beginning to feel a little bored, and wanted to go back to his fish game, but Yan had told him not to turn away. He sat cross-legged on the ground and stared at the house, allowing himself to get lost in childish thoughts. He wondered if Fei would snitch on him about the fish. She wouldn’t though, she knows that if she did she wouldn’t get away with it. Tatara gave a self-satisfied smirk. A ‘king’, he said? Nobody could tell a king what to do. A king could do whatever he wanted. If he had that kind of power, what could he do with it?

“Fire! _Fire!_ ” Came a shout from inside the house, bringing Tatara’s ruminations to an abrupt halt and replacing them with a sudden dread. The manor house was made entirely from wood. Father, mother and Yan were in there. He needed to help them. He needed to do something quickly; so why wouldn’t his legs move? No matter how he tried to move them, they just wouldn’t budge. What was happening?

The guards left the doorway and sprinted into the house in a mad rush to save their masters. No-one noticed the child standing petrified in the courtyard. The fire was spreading - he could already see the flames escaping the windows and setting the front of the house ablaze. Why couldn’t he move?  He just needed to move his legs forward, that was all. But…but Yan had told him to stay right there. Even if he could move, Yan had given him an order not to. He could see red, orange and yellow bursting up in a voracious fury around his parents’ house, cackling with malice at the dying screams of the wood. Great plumes of black smoke wafted towards him from the windows, and Tatara managed to manoeuvre an elbow in front of his mouth so he wouldn’t choke, although his eyes still began to sting. Yan had said if he was in ‘immediate danger’ he should run to the outer courtyard. Tatara wasn’t quite sure what the word ‘immediate’ meant, but he knew Yan was saying that he shouldn’t run unless he was really badly in danger. The fire was scary, but it was only on the house. The courtyard was stone, and Tatara knew enough of science to know that it couldn’t spread any further. So Tatara resigned himself to his semi-paralysis, and forced himself to watch as the flames grew louder, larger and more luminous while shouts and unearthly screams echoed from inside.

Tatara didn’t like this at all. The scent of burning wood permeated his nostrils and in the light warmth the fire emanated from his safe distance, it would have felt just like being in front of a hearth if he did not know his family was mixed in amongst the coals. He felt so useless, but he didn’t know what he should do, and before he knew it, he was crying. It was the smoke. It had to be the smoke. He wiped his tears from his cheeks as soon as they spilt, knowing how disappointed Father, Mother and Yan would be if they saw him.

…Would they ever see him again?

The guards had not returned. No-one who went into that house all that time ago had come out of it, and through the dissipating smoke, Tatara could see the manor had become a burning wreck. The upstairs had caved in on the downstairs, and the roof had collapsed to diagonal slant, slowly falling through the structure of the house. Tatara had long stopped crying. He could now only stare at the fallen building with empty confusion. Somehow, he thought this might be his fault.

The silence was broken when for the first time in too long Tatara could spy a silhouette inside the house shambling towards the doorway. It was a tall, strong figure, and Tatara knew who it was before Yan stepped out into the open air, broken, bruised and bleeding. Tatara still couldn’t move. He found he couldn’t even speak. Yan let out some fierce coughs, and then said something unintelligible behind a hoarse, smoke-choked voice. He extended a hand towards Tatara and repeated it.

“…Yan?” Tatara managed in a quiet whisper.

Yan spoke the unknown phrase again, and again, and again until Tatara could understand it, and still after that. He said it like a mantra as Tatara helped him move across the cobbled stones to the end of the courtyard, desperately holding Yan’s full weight over his frail body, as he struggled to make sense of the world around him.

“It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.”


	2. An Agent of Flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A monster is forged in flame. As light burns out, red leaves unfurl. Mist shrouds a scene by the river, and Tatara learns what it means to be a kagune.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! As ever I’m a slut for feedback of all kinds. Analysis also welcome; since I’m also a meta-writer I can never resist a bit of th’old meaningful language.

_Splish_.

Another miss. Tatara was beginning to find himself growing impatient, but he remembered his brother’s words and tried to recreate his movements in his mind. He tried to sleepily follow the fish with his eyes like Yan did, but as soon as he found it, it was gone. That was the problem with this game when you were playing it in the river. You needed to shoot your kagune out ahead of your fish’s course to catch it in time, which made it a lot more difficult. And these were sturgeons, much faster than catfish. But somehow, he knew Yan could do it, which meant he had to be able to do it too. He was his brother’s kagune. He needed to do justice to the name of Chi She Lian. Spotting another fish, he quickly made his body as still as possible a second before releasing his kagune.

_Splish._

Fei looked at him with eyes moving as slowly as the grey fog over the riverbank. “You missed again. Can we go home now?”

Tatara shot her a disgruntled look. The servants were not due to pick them up for two hours, and she wanted to leave already?  “Just give me time. I’ll definitely get it next time.”

“That’s what you said last time.” Fei complained. “I don’t like this game. Can we go back now?”

“If you’re afraid of hurting a few fish, you have no place in Chi She Lian.” Tatara told her coldly.

“Chi She Lian. That’s all you talk about these days.” Fei sunk her cheek onto one hand, and began curling the white hair in her bob cut with the other.

“Yan says I’m ‘heir apparent’ now. He says I need to ’set an example’.”

“Yan says this, Yan says that.” Fei rolled her head back and forth between her hands. “You just do whatever Yan tells you to do. Just because he hit some stupid fish.”

“It wasn’t a ‘stupid fish’!” Tatara roared.

Fei’s nagging voice suddenly fell silent. When he noticed this, Tatara reluctantly glanced back at her. She was staring at him, and her mouth was quivering with anxiety.

“What?” Tatara asked grumpily.

“You’ve been really scary recently, Tataracchi.”

Tatara breathed a deep sigh. “Don’t call me that.”

A note of sadness struck a chord in Fei’s tone. “Mother always did.”

Tatara’s eyes began to sting, and for a moment, he thought he could see flames licking the corners of his eyes. Tatara willed them away. This was not the first time it had happened, and he knew it was not real. The first time, on his first night back in Beijing, he had dishonoured himself by wailing, shrieking and bawling for his mother like an impudent child. He would not it let it happen again. He gave the flowing waters of the Chaobai a violent stab with his kagune.

“Mother was an idiot.” Tatara loudly declared.

The fear in Fei’s face disappeared in an instant. “What did you say?”

“Mother was an idiot, and so was Father. They were stupid and lazy and they almost led the doves right to us and got us all killed. They were a disgrace to Chi She Lian.” Tatara suppressed the tremble in his voice. He was not going to look weak in front of Fei, of all people.

She slapped him in the face, so he did anyway. A six-year old girl in a pink raincoat wasn’t typically a sight to inspire fear in Tatara, even if she was a Ghoul, since Tatara was one too – but when she pulled him by the ruff of his red anorak and he saw her angry, crying face up close, he thought he could see fire burning from her eyes.

“Don’t ever say that.” She hissed. “Okay? Don’t you ever say that!”

“Yan says-“ Tatara choked out.

“I don’t care what Yan says! You were there, Tataracchi! You were there…You saw what…Yan…” She broke off into sobs, and let Tatara fall onto the muddy riverside.

Tatara was beginning to regret telling Fei what he saw that night. The official line Yan gave out to the Human World and the Ghoul World was the same – a house fire had broken out after a series of gas pipe explosions, which had sadly taken the lives of both his parents and the brave guards who attempted to save them. As the new head of the wealthy and influential Huo family, he would do his best to honour his parents’ memories by continuing their political legacy – and as the new head of Chi She Lian, he meant to honour their memories by fulfilling their dream of transforming China into the first Ghoul state, run by Ghouls and for Ghouls. Tatara was the only one he told the truth to. Yan told him in no uncertain terms that he had killed their parents for their weak and foolish leadership, and that it was the only way to save Chi She Lian. When Tatara asked him why he was telling him this, he simply responded:

“You mean to be my kagune, don’t you? A weapon can’t have doubts. It needs to know the man it serves.”

But the black truth weighed on Tatara’s shoulders the whole journey back to their working residence on the street of Xunhangli in the city, and after he disgraced himself ranting and raving like a madman, he felt he had no choice but to tell someone or else it might happen again. Fei was the only one he could trust. But she was too weak. She didn’t understand what it took to be strong.

Tatara picked himself up out of the mud, and spat a globule from his mouth with a deep searing sense of indignity in his chest. He wanted to tell her that she wouldn’t miss Mother if she had beaten her too, but knowing it would lead to another slap, he shut his mouth.

Fei was still crying. She was being silly and weak, but seeing her so distraught still made Tatara feel uneasy. Tentatively, he laid a hand on her back, and was thrown off guard when she swivelled around and hugged him, burying her streaming eyes into his chest. Tatara awkwardly lowered his arms lightly around her back. It had been a very long time since Tatara had hugged anyone. He found the sensation strange, and a little unsettling. Eventually Fei retracted from him, giving her eyes a final rub and trying to sniff back up the snot dangling inelegantly from her nose.

“Can we go back now?” She asked one last time, her eyes avoiding her older brother’s face. “It’s dangerous for us to be using our kagune out in the open like this. The doves might find us.”

“They can’t see us through the fog.” Tatara objected. His father had once told him that being a Ghoul in Beijing was both a curse and a blessing. A curse because the government had its citizens on surveillance whenever it could, and a blessing because the smog was so thick that nobody could see you anyway. But as soon as he remembered that his eyes began stinging again, and he wanted to go back home.

“But if you want.”

Fei gave a weak little smile at that, pulled her hood up over her head to cover up her face, and walked back into the winding Beijing streets. Tatara slipped his kagune back under his anorak, cleared his eyes of kakugan, and followed suit. It was important to keep their heads covered in public, on the off-chance their resemblance to Yan was noticed. The Huo family’s political rivals were not a threat as Yan always wore a black wig when ‘playing human’, but their pale hair might draw the doves to roost after their parents’ indiscretion. Tall and stout apartment blocks rose up around them as they navigated through the city, but since they all looked the same it wasn’t long before they wound up lost.

Fei became more miserable the longer their circular journey took them, tugging at Tatara’s sleeves and repeating in a sniffly whisper “Tataracchi, we’re lost,” although Tatara would always deny it, each time more vigorously than the last. Their winding journey came to an abrupt halt when Tatara suddenly stopped in his tracks and started sniffing the air, ignoring the small girl bumping into his back behind him.

“Fei, can you smell that?” He asked, once he made sure the street was empty. It was a smell of iron and salt that set Tatara’s mouth watering. There was only one thing it could be.

Fei sniffed the air a few times too, but she did not share her brother’s excitement. “I’m not hungry. I just want to go home.”

Tatara scoffed. “Don’t be stupid, Fei. Where there’s blood, there are Ghouls. They can tell us where to go!”

They had crossed paths with plenty of humans in their journey, but it was not wise not to talk to humans unless absolutely necessary. If they could find a Ghoul, it should be easy – or so Tatara thought. Fei was more hesitant.

“What if they don’t want to help us?”

Tatara frowned. “The ninth ward is  _our_  territory, they have to help us. We’re not just any old Ghouls, you know. Come on, let’s find them already!”

Tatara tugged Fei by the sleeve as he followed the source of the smell through the streets like a bloodhound’s pup, until it took them to a dingy and crooked alleyway between two apartment blocks; a typical haunt for Ghouls. As they descended the sloping path, they could hear familiar sounds. A tear here and a crunch there, shortly followed by noisy chewing and slurping. All the sounds of flesh being rendered and devoured. They saw a severed leg first, and the torso waiting not much further along. It was the body of a wrinkled old man – hardly fine dining, but good enough for a snack. The snacker in question was hunched over his meal with his face in the dead man’s guts like a wild beast, too absorbed with his eating to even notice Tatara and Fei’s approach. Tatara glanced behind him and saw Fei looking a little green. Their meals at home were usually cut into bite-size chunks – seeing a human body being savaged in its entirety was a new experience for the both of them. He was going to make fun of her for being so squeamish about a human, but for all he knew he looked the same as she did. He tried to ignore the convulsions of his stomach and addressed the Ghoul.

“Y-You there!” He said in the most commanding tone he could muster.

The Ghoul’s head jerked out of the man’s body and shot towards Tatara like a viper, shaking the boy’s balance. His mouth was caked with blood, and his eyes were black, red and furious. He had a young, thin face, a flat nose, and wiry black hair that stood on end; and although he was short with barely an ounce of fat beneath his grey overalls, he still towered over the children. His animalistic grunts made Tatara feel uneasy, but he refused to let that stop him.

“Do you know the way to Xuhangli?” Tatara spoke loudly.

The Ghoul gave Tatara a menacing glance before spitting a globule of pink at Tatara’s feet. Very quickly, he went back to eating.

“He’s ignoring us.” Fei gave a few sad tugs on Tatara’s arm.

Tatara’s brow creased in fury. Ripping down his hood, he shoved his face up right next to the Ghoul.

“The heir apparent of Chi She Lian is addressing you, you worm! I command you to tell me the way to Xuhangli!”

The Ghoul stopped eating. He turned again to look at Tatara, more slowly this time, chewing the last remaining guts in his mouth. He swallowed with a loud gulp, and then started speaking.

“You’re Loong’s kid?”

“His brother.” Tatara asserted.

The Ghoul ran a bony arm across his mouth as he lifted himself up from the corpse. Tatara’s eyes glanced over the dead man’s exposed ribcage, and then instantly regretted it.

“And is that your sister?” The Ghoul asked in his hoarse voice, pointing towards Fei, who was swaying nervously from one foot to the other.

“Y-yes, it is.” Tatara announced boldly, though he could hardly see why it mattered. “And if you don’t help us now, my brother will hear about it!”

The Ghoul stared down at them as red tendrils began to creep outside of his back.

“I’m sure he will. What kind of ransom would he pay for the both of you, I wonder?” The Ghoul stalked slowly towards them, spindly hands stretched out in front and kagune stretched out behind. “Come along quietly now. We don’t need any trouble.”

Tatara could hardly comprehend what he was seeing. “B-but you’re a Ghoul! You can’t attack us, this is Chi She Lian territ-“

Tatara’s protest was cut off when a fat tail of kagune smashed him in the face. When his head met the concrete and he was sent sprawling on its surface, the reality of the situation dawned on him with horror.

“Not for long, you little tyke. This’ll be Longxia territory before the year is through, and it’ll be all thanks to me.” A spine-curdling grin split the sides of the Ghoul’s emaciated cheeks.

Tatara lifted his aching body from the ground and looked for Fei. He found her standing stock still, staring at the Ghoul with wide, frightened eyes. He couldn’t tell why, but his eyes started stinging again.

“Fei! Run!” He screamed. Fei’s eyes darted towards him, and she could move again. But just as she began to run, a rinkaku tendril darted towards her, and caught her through the shoulder-blade.

Hoisted through the air, her screams echoed through the alleyway as she kicked and hit and struggled but remained helplessly suspended as the Ghoul watched her dangle like a fish on a line. Just like that day before, Tatara found himself petrified. He wanted,  _needed_ to help her with every bone in his body but it was his muscles that failed him. Squeezing his eyes shut in abject fear, he tried to slow his hyperventilated breathing as he heard the ghoul’s footsteps leisurely slop towards him, wiping their bloodied matter on the grim concrete.  _Do not move and do not_   _turn away. Do you understand?_ A flickering.  _Do not move and do not_   _turn away. Do you -_  A roaring. A roaring that filled his ears –  _and do not turn away -_ A far off unheard scream.

_Do not turn away._

Blood swirled into Tatara’s veins like a bushfire. Eyes gleaming red and screaming like a wild animal cub, he pelted himself at the Ghoul just as his bony hand reached down to clasp his skull. The Ghoul let out an irritated oomph at the impact before striking Tatara yet again, this time straight across the jaw. Tatara collapsed to the ground and coughed up a puddle of blood swimming with fragments of teeth, and the Ghoul reached down again more rapidly to seize him by the scuff of his coat. Tatara turned around savagely and bit him with the remnants of his mouth. The Ghoul howled in pain and rained blow after blow against Tatara’s head with his fist, but he wouldn’t let go, digging deeper and deeper still as he clenched on with the force of the pain.

Until his side was split open. Tatara felt the relentless piercing thrust of the horns of a slamming bull before he realised the Ghoul had skewered him with his kagune. More blood burst instantly out of Tatara’s mouth, and he could hold on no longer as he too was lifted into the smog-choked sky. The Ghoul beneath him split into two before his eyes, reformed himself and split apart again as Tatara’s vision struggled to keep focus. His mind was swimming with panicked thoughts, sounds, and memories.

_Can I trust you to be my kagune?_

Straining as the tentacle slithered around him, coils constantly constricting and crushing him in its clutches, Tatara struggled to ease out his bikaku. Slipping out of his back and tearing through his coat, the blood-red dagger managed to skim the skin of the enemy’s kagune. It pierced easily and trailed a light but searing wreck of destruction through the organ. The Ghoul let out a howl and a series of curses and Tatara found the crushing weight evaporated in an instant, the friction of plunging air and rapidly rising pavement taking its place before the wind was knocked out of him on hitting the ground.

The Ghoul was not taking things easily now. With the pace of a wounded lion, he stalked in anger towards Tatara, who was struggling, struggling to return to his feet before another tail of kagune cracked him down. Small bloodied fingers scraped fruitlessly against the grey slabs, searching for some hold, something to let him stand. Tatara’s head throbbed and he felt the bruises burning against his body. He had never been in such pain in his life. It was nothing like his training lessons in the slightest. Balling his hand into a fist, with one final effort to rise, he screamed out in agony as the Ghoul’s boot smashed down on it. His eyes swerving upwards in panic and desperation, he saw the ugly face of the Ghoul look down on him with the most animalistic contempt. To die at the hands of such a cretin…and he believed he could be a king some day…

The Ghoul leaned over him…and stopped. A flash of red, and Tatara’s face was covered in blood. The Ghoul was yanked backwards out of his vision and he heard a thud, the slosh of a blade leaving flesh, and the pitter-patter of light footsteps.

“Tatar-“, sounded a soft voice interrupted by exhausted heavings of breath, “Tataracchi!”

Fei looked down on him with terrified concern in her red eyes, her kagune slipping back into her body. She thrust her hand down to his.

“F-Fei…” Tatara croaked… “How…”

“You freed me, idiot. Now come on, let’s go!”

Tatara remembered how the Ghoul had howled when he tore up his kagune. In the madness of battle, Fei had faded from his vision. He grasped her hand and allowed her to haul him up. But as she began to walk him out of the alleyway, Tatara spared a glance at their assailant. On all fours, retching blood, struggling to stand. His headache sounded like the beat of a war drum.

“Fei…” he snarled, “he’s not dead.”

The Ghoul turned his head at the sound, and for a moment, their eyes met. The Ghoul sprang up, and ran.

Forgetting his pain in an instant, Tatara wriggled out of Fei’s grasp, pushing her when she held him back, and sprinted after him. Flames crackled in the corners of his mind and his eyes stung with pain. But it was a good pain. It kept him sharp. It kept him focused. It would stop him from turning away. The Ghoul clambered on the shoddy brickwork of one of the apartment blocks bordering the alleyway, smashing his kagune into the wall to haul himself upwards. He didn’t get far before Tatara’s kagune bludgeoned the wall inches away from him, the boy poised like a scorpion, aiming his stinger with predatorial fury. The Ghoul launched himself onto the wall opposite, and seeing the tail shooting again, rebounded back before it could crush him. Tatara’s teeth ground with fury as the Ghoul would jump and dodge every time he lashed out, slowly but surely making his way up to the rooftops. Rubble was breaking off of the buildings with every strike; if they continued this way unwanted attention was sure to come quickly. His eyes darted back and forth, back and forth. Time was running out. But if he were to escape…if after all this, he were to  _escape…_ but all the same, he just couldn’t  _hit him!_

_That requires another discipline altogether._ Yan tapped the side of his head.

The scorpion became an eagle. Letting his rage simmer through his body, letting the flames burn to the comfort of a fireside, Tatara relaxed his whole body and allowed his eyes to lazily follow his rapid, frenzied, desperate foe, increasingly little else but a shadow in the mist. His actions felt childish. Standing stock still, he calmly waved his kagune from side to side, letting it swim through the air currents, testing balance, preparing  trajectory. His enemy jumped. Nothing. He jumped again. Nearing the top now. His legs creased again, the boy saw, and the Ghoul exploded in mid-air in a conflagration of blood. The kagune had shot out of the mist as a silent spear and hit straight home, reaching further than ever before, shredding  the Ghoul’s belly and rushing straight on through with the force of the wind. Tatara retracted, and as the bloody agent swung back to his side, he heard a crunch, a squelch, and a desolate moan. The young Ghoul stalked through the mist leisurely towards his prey. Ragged breathing was cut off by a foot on his head. Silence followed.

“Do you know the way to Xuhangli?”

“W-wha-“ Mumblings escaped the slabs.

“I asked you.” Tatara snatched the prey by the hair and pulled his head back to look in his eyes. There were tears in his, but none in Tatara’s. Though his voice was like a thunderstorm. “Do you know the way to Xuhangli?”

The Ghoul was dumbstruck. Tatara smacked him across the face and punched him in the nose. The Ghoul’s head fell back to the ground before Tatara lifted it up, held it there, and threw a punch with every syllable.

“Do – you –know – the –way – to – Xu – hang – li?”

Coughing up blood, and cringing in fear, he told him.

Tatara nodded, and turned behind him to Fei.

“Did you get that?”

Fei was silent. Her vibrant eyes were grey. Fixed on him but still, like a camera or an old photograph.

“…Well, I can remember.”

He turned his eyes back to the Ghoul. It raised a pathetic glance up at him. Tatara’s eyes creased, and he smashed his kagune through his internal organs. What insolence…Tatara wiped his hands on his coat. No-one would see them in the fog anyway. 

Wrapping his hand in Fei’s motionless one, he led her back the way they came, having gone in the wrong direction all along. They stepped over the Ghoul, blood spreading like a flower.


End file.
